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Are DATs Still Worth Buying?
Anonymous Coward asks: "DATs are currently the standard for recording legal concerts like Phish and the Grateful Dead. However, they're absurdly expensive even on eBay and are no longer being developed actively by any companies. Are there any alternatives that are more cost effective than DATs (Sony has a D100 out for 700 USD) and maintain the same quality? (DATs can sample up to 48kHz)."
If you absolutely MUST have 48kHz sampling rate then i don't know. If you're just going to be recording Phish and Greatful Dead concerts then all you need is a MiniDisc recorder. MD has pretty much taken over the DAT market.
Ask the RIAA, I'm sure they'd be more than willing to help you out.
I'll have to see if it can record at 48KHz, since I've only used it at 44.1KHz (CD sample rates). Since it stores at least 20G of data, uses USB or firewire, optical/line-in, dual replaceable batteries, etc., it is great for recording shows.
Minidiscs are certainly cheaper, but they can only hold a little more than an hour and if they screw up during the 'finalization step', the recording is toast - I don't have one but I know of some people who have had this happen. Also for the non-compressed audio purists, it's a no-no since it employs a lossy data compression scheme to store the music on the disc.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
You should thank you are not paying the prices as those of us attending those illegal concerts. Although illegal concerts are way cooler.
Harddisks are the cheapest way to store just about any kind of data these days. Alesis (alesis.com), Mackie (mackie.com), Tascam (tascam.com) and many others sell dedicated recorders that take removable harddisks. Unfortunately all the examples of these I know of are large multitrack rackmount beasts, which is maby not what you're looking for. I would try searching google for harddisk recorders though.
Another option you might consider is using a notebook computer. M-Audio (midiman.com) and Digidesign (digidesign.com) both sell relatively small USB audio interfaces that are better than any laptopss built-in sound. Mark of the Unicorn (motu.com), Presonus (presonus.com) and Echo Audio (echoaudio.com) all sell bulkier-but-nice firewire and pcmcia interfaces.
If you want something that you can carry around in your pocket then minidisc is probably the way to go.
Then use a Nomad or similar to capture the PCM.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
is gaining popularity with the USB ADC/DACs. I'm quite happy with my UA-5.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laptop-tapers/
MD is lossy and has no decent digital outs.
The nomad is fairly popular, except for recurring reports of dropped samples. I haven't heard if it's been fixed.
"'Tis great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults, greater to tell him his." --Poor Richard's Almanac
To match the fidelity of a DAT recorder, you'd need a laptop and a USB audio adapter, and record the raw audio input (no compression). A palmtop with an auxiliary battery and Microdrive might work as well.
Can you really hear the difference? Especially since live recordings generally suck anyway, even with good quality (i.e. $$$) mikes.
The Neuros with firmware 1.40 (I'm using 1.40A, which is 1.40 with the fully optimized Vorbis decoder which rocks because now I can listen to my 160kbps ABR Vorbis files without clicks over MyFi [in 1.40, they skipped to the point of being unlistenable over MyFi, but only skipped in really complicated sections of songs through the headphone out]...but I'm getting a bit off topic now). Anyway, support for recording to wav files was added in firmware 1.40, with the option of recording 8kHz/8-bit, or 44.1kHz/16-bit or 48kHz/16-bit. 48kHz/16-bit is DAT quality, and the Neuros has a line-in jack so you should be able to hook up most external mics to it (at least with a preamp because it doesn't have a +20dB signal boost; of course I assume that bootleggers don't use crappy unpowered mics that have a maximum signal level of -20 dB instead of 0 dB).
The only problem with recording is that the unit's built in mic picks up a low pitched "hum," which I assume is electrical noise and the noise of the hard drive spinning when it needs to dump the recorded data from where it caches it (I'm not sure if it just caches in RAM or if it writes to the built in flash and then copies over the hd; I think it writes to flash because the hd only spun up once every ten minutes or so when I was recording for about an hour in 44.1kHz/16-bit mode).
The recording stuff has a nice level stereo level meter but no editing tools (yet), so it isn't quite as nice to use as many recorders, but Digital Innovations seems to be responsive to user requests for features (Ogg Vorbis support, scheduled radio recording, equalization, etc.) so maybe there will be a few simple editing tools added eventually (I'm thinking stuff like being able to hit one of the present buttons to make a mark and then hitting the menu button to do something like delete everything between markers or normalize it, etc.). Still, it works great for just recording stuff and then copying it to a computer for editing.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
Sure, a laptop with a 24-bit, 96-khz sound card.
If you're doing field recordings, though, I somehow doubt that you need such fidelity. Then, portable MD recorders are pretty attractive...
I have located a tape recorder that will meet all the quality requirements for any Phish or Dead concert.
I'm a long time 'dat-head' (from back in the early 90's). and lately I've heard of an attempt, using a linux-based iPaq, to create a pda-based digital spdif bit-for-bit accurate digital audio recorder. with the goal of making DAT obsolete.
DAT is far from the idea medium. the infamous 'buzzsaw' diginoise from dirty or misaligned heads, from using thinner 90meter tapes instead of the more standard thickness 60meter ones, etc, etc. getting bit-accurate results from DAT is not due to the spdif side of things, its purely the physics of the high rpm tape head drum and the cheapness in the manufacture of something that needs a very high level of precision. and of course you also have to do regular maintenance on the system to keep it clean and aligned.
if you can take the tape part out of DAT, it would be fine. oh, and extend it from 2 hours to something much longer (with no 'tape flips').
the project page that I found has a pda sized expansion card that allows you to import and export digital audio via the spdif protocol. if this system works (I've not personally seen it yet), it could mean that we can finally take the physical problems of the DAT drive out of the live recording loop.
suppose you have a wireless card as your 'storage' (think remote nfs) device. you can go to shows and capture a live digital feed (if you're lucky enough to know the soundboard guy) then remotely transmit the data via nfs/802.11 to your fileserver in your car, in the parking lot. running on the car battery, for reliability. sounds pretty darn cool to me..
I think the card that the core-sound device was based on is the VxPocket, which you can buy today and will work on laptops. so if you don't -need- a pda sized recorder, you can bring a laptop (and 80gig drives are currently available for 2.5" drives) and capture that spdif stream directly to local storage.
finally, it looks like there is hope for live recording enthusiasts, with hard-disk based reliability (hey, compared to tape, HD is heaven).
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
The Korg Pandora PXR4.
Alex.
DATs are expensive? Really? I usually end up paying around $2 a pop for 60 meter DDS (120 minutes in 44.1/48khz mode, 240 minutes in 32khz) and $2.60 a pop for 90 meter DDS (180min , 360 min) tapes. Check American Digital and Masterpiece AV. If you go down to your CompUSA or Micro Center, sure you're going to pay $10 to $20 for a tape, but that's why you buy online.
I've looked at some of the other alternatives to portable DAT machines, including the mostly open source project Core Sound is pushing, but I'm waiting for it to mature. A 1 gig compact flash card is still over $120 for the most part. That's only about 90 minutes of raw audio. Minidiscs never did it for me. I borrowed one from a friend, and the whole 80 minute capacity issue took me back to the days of flipping over tapes between songs. Do they have discs over 80 minutes for stereo recordings?
The only problem with recording is that the unit's built in mic picks up a low pitched "hum," which I assume is electrical noise and the noise of the hard drive spinning...
If this hum is present in all recordings, then the Neuros is completely useless to anyone wanting to do serious recording.
As an aside: I had a Toshiba satellite that added noise to line in mic signals whenever the hard drive spun, which it does constantly in Windows - never mind if the recording app is using memory to store incoming audio or not. My question to the manufacturers is, why bother even putting a line in / mic jack if any incoming signal is going to be so corrupted? (My newer Toshiba is much better, but I'd still never record audio on it or any other laptop using the built in jacks.)
By mastering to a DVD format, (either DVD-Video or a DVD-Video/Audio hybryd,) you have a format that can be as copied as easily as a CD and plays back in easily found consumer-grade equipment, yet sounds better then CD. You also can include pictures as well.
The Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox 3 has 48khz and 44.1khz sampling abilities, and records directly to wave files on its hard disk. In addition, because it comes in such large sizes (10-40 GB), it can store well beyond what any DAT or MD could. This is what I have been using for my concert recording as of late, and it has worked like a charm. I don't know much about the sensitivity of the line input, but I'm sure this could be found on Creative's site.
michael greene
I guess that since Windows has pretty much taken over the desktop market it must make it the best choice?
/. cookout.
MD has taken over the consumer market, not the tapers world.
Your 10 year old niece bringing in her MD with a Radio Shack mic to tape Britney isnt the same as the taper freak with Bruel & Kjaer mics.
I have yet to see a serious taper use MD.
A small percentage are now bringing SONY VAIO's and putting it straight to HD but an MD taper will get the same look as an HTML 'coder' at a
Hell, old school dudes who still use analog cassette get more respect.
zeke
>since live recordings generally suck anyway
You must be mooching from Darl.
Having taped on and off for over twenty years I have to say that your generalization makes you a SCO CEO candidate.
Is there bad taping? Yeah.
Is there bad open source software? Yeah.
But Ill put 3/4 of the shows I have taped in the category of the best known live album: The Allman Brothers at the Fillmore East.
And with time in a studio I could probably bring up another 10-15%.
And Ive seen plenty of credit card hippies by new gear yet be totally clueless, so quality mikes dont guaratee anything.
And while board access brings a cleaner sound it is nowhere close to reproducing the live experience like a audience recording. The vocals are too harsh, you get almost no audience response and boards do not reflect what you heard.
This is a long running debate among tapers but most take more pride in their AUD than the SBD.
aa
But its nice to know that sharing your vast knowledge makes you insightful.
The 4% diff. has nothing to do with what you hear, there are other posts here that explained this.
zeke
Go to a few concerts, hang around the tapers section. More and more Sony VAIO.
/.ers...
>I somehow doubt that you need such fidelity
You dont need a 2.4 Athlon to surf the net and send email..what's your point?
Just because you dont need it doesnt mean its not want.
Tapers are as much freaks as
I used one to shoot Tupac!